When the cost of college hits hard, free course materials matter

LCCC faculty and students embrace open educational resources, or OER, for its cost-saving benefits

Costs associated with college aren’t trivial for Peyton Gire. For the Laramie County Community College sophomore in the Business & Accounting Pathway, the difference can be in the essentials.

“The cost of college overall can add up quickly, especially if you are paying for housing, tuition and other fees,” he said. “Having that extra money helps me afford essentials like food and gas.”

Knowing those little costs add up for students, an increasing number of LCCC instructors and support teams are exploring Open Educational Resources, or OER. These are free, high-quality learning materials that can replace traditional textbooks, removing one of the most persistent financial barriers students face and helping align instruction with the college’s mission of access and affordability.

The overall cost of college has risen sharply, and financial pressure remains a major reason students consider leaving school. A 2023 study found that nearly 83% of Wyoming students think higher education is out of reach because of money.

Against that backdrop, all cost reductions improve a student’s ability to stay enrolled and succeed. Proponents of OER at LCCC know that implementing their approach on a wider scale comes with challenges. 

But for Chrissy Reynolds, a second-year applied management student who works full-time, it’s clear any purported tradeoffs with OER are worth it for the students’ sake. 

“Times have changed, and along with the times, technology has advanced,” she said. “Using OER not only helps students, but it can also help instructors utilize technology to better teach their students.”

Discovering opportunities

OER became personal for LCCC Spanish instructor Ian Caldon when a student told him she couldn’t afford the required text for his Spanish in the Workplace course. Even though she was able to purchase an old edition of the book, the student still didn’t have the access code provided by the more recent edition. Ian said the conversation changed him.

“When a student told me they couldn’t afford the book, that hit me hard,” Ian said. “It made me realize I didn’t want to be part of a system where students couldn’t access the material they needed.”

While Ian said he had some familiarity with OER as a concept, he didn’t understand the scope until he contacted LCCC librarian Maggie Swanger.

LCCC’s Ludden Library, Maggie said, can play a central role in helping faculty shift to low or no-cost materials for students. Instructors new to OER can find help in identifying open texts, vetted resources and high-quality materials faculty can build into their courses.

 “We can help identify existing OER, or sometimes we can buy an ebook through one of our subscription sources so students can access it for free,” Maggie said.

Not just lower cost — it’s better 

Danielle Adams, a Business & Accounting instructor, said her transition to OER reshaped how she thinks about teaching.

Building accounting assignments directly in Excel that build in complexity until students are solving full accounting scenarios, Danielle said her students benefit not only from the savings but from learning in the actual tools they’ll encounter in the workplace rather than in a simulated environment.

Danielle said instructors often feel more invested in their teaching when they build the content themselves, gaining a deeper understanding of the material and a stronger connection to how students learn it. 

“I think instructors teach with more passion when they build their own materials,” she said. “I teach my best when I truly understand my work.”

No tradeoffs in quality 

Concerns about the quality of open materials still come up, but Maggie said those worries rarely align with the evidence. Students in OER-based courses overwhelmingly report that the materials are just as good or better than courses with a traditional textbook.

While there are areas of education where OER hasn’t developed or won’t apply in the same way, Maggie said access to quality material in general education subjects has improved dramatically in recent years, giving faculty multiple strong options to choose from.

The quality of the classes Peyton took where OER was offered matched or exceeded those with required textbooks, he said, leaving him feeling prepared to succeed in college. 

“I feel that I had equal or even better quality of education in these classes because I had access to the textbook if I needed it,” Peyton said. “It was easier to access the [OER] textbook as well. In some classes that I did have to pay for a traditional textbook, I found that we did not use it as much or only parts of it, which makes the cost seem unnecessary.”